"[...] tonight Apple entered into evidence in its trial with Samsung a document showing that it offered the South Korean company a licensing deal on some of its key technologies. Specifically, Apple offered to license the portfolio of patents if Samsung would pay $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet." $30-40 per device is a lot of money for some trivial features (rounded corners, slide-to-unlock etc). No wonder Samsung declined.

As a 'style', these either should be bound by FRAND, or better yet, not patentable.

For example, rounded corners are just a sensible bit of design - sharp corners are uncomfortable and/or dangerous. Having rounded corners is not innovative, and preventing anyone else from having them is unfairly anti-competitive.

Now, if Apple have a particular manufacturing technique, where other means to create rounded corners are available, than that technique is patentable.

But there are an awful lot of patents out there that are not genuinely protecting R&D investment, but are just being used to restrict competition.

Trade dress is not just rounded corners. Its a combination of all their design claims.

Rounded corner, icon shape, design, color. Design of the front. Etc.

Essentially Samsung piggybacked off of an iconic design, to the point where they advertised the Galaxy series with the app drawer opened so it'd look more like an iPhone to consumers. The packaging was similar, the design ethos was essentially the same. Their internal documents show attempted iPhoneification.

Its easy to sit here and say "well rounded corners are ridiculous" but looking at the big picture, it is clear Samsung engaged in egregious copying. You squint your eyes and you can't even tell the difference.

As a 'style', these either should be bound by FRAND, or better yet, not patentable.

For example, rounded corners are just a sensible bit of design - sharp corners are uncomfortable and/or dangerous. Having rounded corners is not innovative, and preventing anyone else from having them is unfairly anti-competitive.

Now, if Apple have a particular manufacturing technique, where other means to create rounded corners are available, than that technique is patentable.

But there are an awful lot of patents out there that are not genuinely protecting R&D investment, but are just being used to restrict competition.

The big danger in all this, especially for these whose vision is impaired by Apple hatred, is to not see the wood for trees. If you copy another product's look and feel and packaging to such an extent that it might be considered illegal then by it's nature such copying will be made up of lots of small design features which if removed from context and presented in isolation can be made to seem silly or trivial.

But the fact of the matter is that what is at stake is the deliberate cloning of the design of entire products, and when you look at the entire product you can see that Samsung tried to copy Apple's product design. Their conscious aim to copy Apple's designs is clearly and explicitly revealed in their internal documents released as part of this court action.

The fact that Samsung set out to copy Apple products is not in dispute anymore. Neither is it disputed that Samsung released several products that looked uncannily like Apple's products. Nor is it impossible to avoid creating a product that looks like an Apple product because others have done just that.

The only issue here is do you or do you not think it was wrong for Samsung to clone Apple's products?

I guess that these FRAND terms for licence came at a time when everybody played nicer with each other and were more willing to cross licence their patent in equivalent terms.
Apple decided not to play nice with the other major player of the industry, disrupted the market (probably in a good way), and probably raised hell as well concerning the problem of patent ligations.